


Under Control

by notyouranswer (gorgeouschaos)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcoholic Dean Winchester, Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Temporary Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Post-Hell Dean Winchester, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2020-09-30 11:04:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20446103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgeouschaos/pseuds/notyouranswer
Summary: Dean has always had his drinking totally, absolutely, completely, entirely under control.





	1. Pre-Series to Season Two

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys!
> 
> As you can see from the tags, this story is focused on Dean's relationship with alcohol. Having grown up around a person with alcohol problems I'm basing a lot of this fic off of my own experiences.  
If alcohol is a trigger for you, I would not advise reading this.
> 
> Secondly, no, I do not need another WIP. I started one anyway. Chapter two should be out soon-ish. Emphasis on should. I'm only on Season Five so chapter three will be a while.
> 
> Also, I apologize for any dialect differences between my writing and the show. My own accent tends to appear in dialogue.
> 
> I hope you enjoy! :)  
(If you do, kudos make my day, comments my week.)

Dean is a month from starting high school when he has his first shot of whiskey. His dad took him out on a routine salt-and-burn and Dean got thrown into a wall. Usually that wouldn’t be too much of a problem, just some bruises and sore ribs to explain away, but the glass picture case had shattered when his elbow hit it. 

John tossed salt at the ghost and dragged him out of the house, left Dean in the car with an iron knife while he finished digging up the bastard’s grave. Dean clutched the knife in the same hand he held a bloody rag to his wound with and tried to stay awake.

Dean doesn’t remember the drive back. Just staggering through the motel door with most of his weight on his dad and Sam’s face turning sheet-white as he took in the blood.

Now Dean’s about to get stitched up and his dad is offering him a shot glass brimming with whiskey.

“You’ll need it,” John says, eyebrows drawn together. 

Dean tosses it back smooth like he’s seen his dad do on so many occasions, and then he lets out a series of hacking coughs as his throat burns. 

John’s lips twitch. He refills the glass and slides it toward Dean.

Dean coughs less this time. The liquor feels almost comfortably warm as it goes down, although it still tastes awful. He  _ is _ a lightweight, he allows, feeling the whiskey beginning to pleasantly haze everything. A beer or two is all his dad ever allows him so his tolerance is low, although that won’t last long in this life.

He takes another shot before his dad cuts him off with an odd expression, saying, “That’s probably enough for now.” 

Dean doesn’t argue. He doesn’t want more, really, though he does want his arm to stop hurting, he just wants to go to sleep, and to make sure Sammy’s okay.

He also wants to not have to do this. But his dad says it’s something they have to do, that hunting is as much Dean’s responsibility as taking care of Sammy, and Dean knows that what he thinks he wants doesn’t really matter.

The whiskey makes the thought seem more distant, more muted, than it usually is. It’s nice.

After the alcohol’s been poured over Dean’s arm and he’s been stitched up, he curls up next to Sammy and tries to stop shaking, tries to hold onto the detachment. Dean doesn’t even bother to respond when Sammy rolls closer and tells Dean his breath smells like a liquor store.

\---

The first time Dean really seeks solace in the bottom of a bottle he’s twenty-two and his brother’s just left him.

John took off after thirteen silent minutes of waiting and hoping and Dean’s pretty sure he’s at the nearest bar, which means Dean has to find a different source of booze.

The liquor store across town does just fine. Dean waits until he’s parked Baby in the neon-lit motel lot to open the bottle of bourbon. He wouldn’t risk crashing-- can't let anything happen to Baby.

Dean gets so thoroughly hammered that he doesn’t wake up when John, barely on his feet himself at the time, drags him into bed.

When Sam tries to call six weeks later, Dean ignores the call and grabs a beer. John is somewhere in Wisconsin chasing a werewolf and Sam’s in California chasing his ideal life and Dean’s in Louisiana nursing two broken fingers and some stitches.

This time when he breaks out the whiskey, no one’s around to cut him off.

\---

After everything-- the crash, the hospital, John’s death-- Dean tries to stay sober. Tries to keep himself under control. 

He really does. 

Sam’s got a blind spot a mile wide when it comes to Dean, as long as Dean’s careful to keep it together, but he’s starting to watch Dean when he has a bottle in his hand in a way Dean doesn’t care for.

“I’m not okay,” Sam says, standing there saying things he should know better than to ever voice out loud and  _ God _ , does he think Dean doesn’t  _ know _ that? 

_ What am I supposed to do, Sammy? _

Dean waits until his brother’s inside to pick up the crowbar and take it to the Impala. It almost feels as good as taking it to himself would.

-

When he goes inside, Sam’s not waiting for him, but Bobby is.

Dean doesn’t know what to say so he opts for silence.

“Dean,” Bobby starts.

Dean holds up a finger, walks to the fridge, and takes out a beer. After he’s popped the cap with his ring and taken a swig he turns to face Bobby.

There’s an expression on Bobby’s face that makes Dean want to apologize, or hide, or scream. Dean opens his mouth and closes it.

“You gonna do that, then?” Bobby demands, jabbing a finger into Dean’s chest. “You gonna do exactly what your daddy did after Mary died? I thought you were gonna learn from his mistakes, Dean.”

Dean doesn’t respond. 

“‘Cause son, if you think I’m gon’ let you go down that road, then you’re even more of a damn fool than I thought you were.”

Bobby yanks the bottle from Dean’s unresisting hand.

“You ever made meatloaf?”

Dean shakes his head.

“Well, you’re gonna. Wash your hands and change first though, for Chrissakes. You look like you lost a fight with a gas pump.”

Dean meekly goes upstairs. And if he eyes the small flask in his bag Sam thinks has holy water in it just a little too long, nobody has to know.

\---

Sam’s dead.

Sammy’s dead and Bobby wants to burn him, bury him, wants Dean to let Sam go.

_ Sammy. _

Dean tells Bobby to get out and if he survives this Dean knows he’ll regret that. But the booze in his hand is what’s going to get him through this, not Bobby, for all his gruff fatherly affection.

-

The crossroads demon takes his buzz when he kisses her and in some ways that makes it crueler when Sam wakes up and Dean has no shield to hide behind.

But Sammy’s alive. And even without alcohol clouding his thoughts, making everything seem more simple and less painful, Dean would do it again in a heartbeat.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t take the first chance to drown out the crackling of Hellfire in the back of his mind in a cheap bar in Cheyenne.


	2. Season Three to the Beginning of Season Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right y'all, here we go. It's probably going to just keep getting darker from here on out. Updated warnings should be in the tags, ask if you have questions about anything.  
(I have OCD. There is no such thing as a weird trigger to me.)  
Rest of Season Four should be out in the next couple weeks or so.

Sam cracks after several days of Dean’s bullshit. Dean lays off the burgers, lays off the anonymous sex, even lays off of the booze for a little while. Sobriety doesn’t last long, though, and Sam can’t really complain too much, because it’s not like Dean’s ever going to need his liver again after the Hellhounds shred him.

They hunt demons and other things and they save people, kill some evil sons of bitches and raise a little Hell, and Dean tries desperately to hold onto the moments slipping through his desperate, clenching fingers.

Bobby goes into a coma and Dean and Sam rush to his side. Bobby’s lying in a pale, papery gown, his usual fraying hat absent, his face slack. Dean feels bile rising in his throat at the sight of Bobby so vulnerable.

The college kid, Frost, offers Dean a beer, and Dean’s hindbrain is telling him not to accept it, telling him something is wrong here, but fuck, just a few sips can’t hurt, right?

After Dean’s yelled everything he’s never even let himself think at the version of himself he’s terrified of, they all go back to Bobby’s. Bobby offers them both beers and Dean can feel Sam’s worried eyes on him--  _ hypocrite _ , Dean thinks but does not say-- so he only drinks the one.

He waits until Sam and Bobby are asleep and sneaks out of the house with a bottle of Jack. Dean’s been sneaking out to climb around on the junkers since he was ten, even though Bobby’d probably be furious.

It’s cold, not quite cold enough for Dean’s breath to mist but close, just another reminder of how little time he has left. He finds an old, rusting Mustang out on the far edge of the salvage yard, climbs onto the roof, and pulls the cork out of the bottle.

The stars are beautiful. Dean stares at them and takes a swig, the liquor burning comfortably on its way down. 

_ Bobby staring at his dead wife.  _ Drink.

_Lisa and Ben waiting for him._ Drink.

_ Attack dog.  _ Drink.

_ Good soldier, nothing else. Daddy’s blunt little instrument. _ Drink.

_ Your own father didn't care whether you lived or died. Why should you?  _

“I don’t,” Dean tells the stars, pausing with the bottle halfway to his mouth. “That’s nothing new, though.”

_ It wasn’t fair!  _

Longer drink.

He makes his way through about half the bottle before he thinks maybe he can look at his reflection without seeing black spreading into his eyes.

The days and weeks and months go by faster as Dean’s time runs out. He tries to cram as much life as possible into his remaining time on Earth. He knows the only thing that might have a chance of keeping him sane-- keeping him  _ him _ \-- in Hell is Sam. But the only thing keeping him sane now is the nips of whiskey he sneaks when Sam’s not looking, the probably too many beers he drinks leaning on the Impala’s hood and in shady bars.

Somehow 364 days go by, and Bobby and Sam come up with a final grab for Dean’s soul, and Dean wishes he couldn’t feel a goddamn thing, and failing that, he wishes he could afford to be drunk when the Hellhounds come.

\---

Dean digs his way out of his own grave and Bobby tries to kill him and at least that’s something like what he’s gotten used to in the past decades. Bobby offers him a beer after he accepts Dean’s  _ Dean _ and it numbs just a little of the screaming in Dean’s head. 

Dean says he doesn’t remember Hell, and Bobby might believe him, but Sam sure as hell doesn’t.

Dean thinks he can pull it off until three nights after he gets back. The first night he’d been too exhausted to dream, the second he’d stayed up until 2:38am lying on his side watching Sam sleep.

The third night, Dean dreams about Alastair whispering in his ear while the demon’s fingers slowly, meticulously, tore his intestines into long, thin strips, and Dean--

Dean screams himself out of his dream the same way he’d screamed for Alastair and for a few seconds too long Dean sees Hell instead of a shitty motel room, and Sammy’s leaning over him, Sammy’s reaching for him, and Dean flinches back, closes his eyes, because this isn’t Sammy but it sure looks like him, and--

The lights flick on and Dean jackknifes upright. He’s in a shitty motel room. 

Sammy’s standing by the bathroom door, his posture non-threatening, his hands visible, his eyes sad and gentle, and that’s the way he acts when they interview victims.

That would piss Dean off at any other time but there’s too much panic in his system to really care about anything besides the fact that this isn’t Hell, this isn’t the rack.

“Dean,” Sammy says, and Dean’s already mostly dressed, so all he has to do is pull on his boots and his leather jacket and slam the door behind him. He thinks about leaving, driving, going somewhere, but Sam’s here, and the thought of leaving Sam even for a few minutes feels like Alastair’s knives.

Dean pops the trunk, pulls out his emergency bottle of booze-- he’d had the presence of mind to replace it after he got back, thank God-- and uncaps it. It’s cheap absinthe, the highest proof you can get in the US, and it makes him retch, makes his eyes water.

There’s not a lot of stars, not past the flickering light of the neon motel sign, but he looks for them anyway.

Sam gives Dean exactly twenty-seven minutes. Then he comes out into the parking lot and leans against the hood with him. Dean is obscurely, pitifully glad that Sammy trusted him enough to grant him those twenty-seven minutes.

Dean lets Sammy lead him inside once he starts listing to the side.

In the morning, Sam tries to talk about it. Dean takes a swig of the absinthe he’d brought in and wordlessly leaves to get breakfast.

Dean takes to keeping a bottle of booze by his bed. 

Sam looks at it like he wants to shoot it. 

Dean mentions Ruby.

Sam keeps his mouth shut, apart from the occasional passive-aggressive comment.

Dean isn’t stupid enough to not realize he’s got a bit of a reliance on alcohol. But when Dean’s mind is clear, when he’s sober, he’s still in Hell, still on the rack, still standing beside it. He sees Alastair in every face, smells his skin burning, feels Alastair’s fingers trailing down his back, the demon’s breath on the back of his neck, hears the walls screaming, looks in the mirror and sees his face flayed, his eyes black.

So really, it’s more of a problem to be sober. And he’s got a brand-new liver now, no point in keeping it that way.

His routine becomes a slug of Jack when Dean wakes up, a few more--  _ okay, a lot more _ , Dean admits silently-- before he falls asleep, or before he stares at the ceiling trying to stop seeing strung-up bodies, trying to listen to Sammy’s breathing, anyway.

(Except Sam thinks Dean still sleeps and Sam leaves and--

Dean drinks himself to sleep most nights after the second time he wakes up choking on his screams, choking on his own blood, choking on his  _ yes _ , and Sam’s not there.)

At least he sleeps a little more that way. Keeps him from looking a little too hard at looking at the knives and pills in the bottom of his bag.

Sam wants to know what Hell was like, what Dean remembers, and Dean would never, ever try to make Sam understand. 


	3. Season Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter-- and also really the previous chapter-- kind of segued into Dean's post-hell trauma a bit, mainly because that seemed to be why he was drinking so much in Season Four. And also because I'm perpetually annoyed we didn't really get to see him work through his hell memories.  
Anyway. Hope you like it, thanks for reading, and feedback makes my day :)

If it was over, if it was done, if all that was left was the screaming in his head, Dean thinks it wouldn’t be this bad. That maybe he could sleep without drinking sometimes. But Castiel tells Dean completely impassively that he could throw Dean back into Hell again, and every time Dean remembers the loaded gun still pointed at his head , his lungs lock up until he can have a few beers. 

Sam wants to meet angels. Dean wants to keep his brother as far away from said angels as possible. Sam wants Dean to tell the truth. Dean doesn’t want Sam to even have an idea of what Hell is like. Sam wants Dean to drink less. Dean wants Sam to fuck off.

Sam pries little pieces of truth out of Dean over the course of the next few months. Dean carefully makes sure he has a beer or two handy for when Sam gets that concerned and sad wrinkle between his eyebrows. It’s just easier that way.

After Alastair shows up in the church and they all make it back to Bobby’s more or less in one piece, Sam asks Ruby about the white-eyed demon. Dean turns around and walks out, ignoring everyone’s silent questions and judgements. He can’t stand Ruby’s knowing eyes. 

Dean winds up leaning on the Impala’s hood with a bottle of Jack and he thinks this might be the closest thing to peace he has anymore.

“I don’t break easy.” 

“Yes, you do,” Uriel says, and Dean reaches for his flask the moment he wakes up.

Dean knows Sam sees that there’s something’s wrong immediately. Dean doesn’t drink on hunts-- it’s one of the few rules he hasn’t broken about booze yet-- but he’s been drinking steadily enough he had Sam drive to the barn. Still, Sam trusts Dean to know his limits, and they both know the’re probably gonna die soon anyway.

Anna’s goodbye kiss tastes like whiskey and regret. Dean’s been swallowing that combination since he was fourteen.

“I know you heard him,” Dean says, because Alastair’s fucked him up too much for Sam to keep pretending neither of them notice. Dean’s not nearly drunk enough for this conversation, but he’s on his second beer and he still has to drive. 

He won’t let Sam drive Baby. Not right now, when she’s the only thing he has left that he can control.

Dean says “Alastair” and fights hard to keep his voice steady as everything-- or as much as he’s ever gonna say out loud-- spills out. He can feel himself losing it, starts feeling his composure crack, and Dean blocks everything out until they’ve made it back to Bobby’s. After he gets upstairs he lets himself feel relief because the bottle he’d started last night is where he’d left it. 

He drinks until he can’t remember that whiskey tastes like Anna. 

Sam must get him into bed because Dean wakes up curled on his side with his boots off and the bottle missing.

Sam’s gone too. 

Dean takes a hit off his flask and goes back to sleep.

Cas tells him to break Alastair and Dean wonders if Heaven has been giving Feathers angel meth. If so Dean wants in on it.

Dean can’t break Alastair. No one in Hell could, not now. There’s a reason he has white eyes.

Dean drinks bourbon like water and tries to convince himself that he’s out of Hell as he pours salt down Alastair’s throat.

How thoughtful of the angels to have provided him with a full bottle.

Dean doesn’t get sober for a solid three days after Sam kills Alastair. Sam finally gets fed up and starts shouting about _ addiction _ and  _ coping mechanisms _ and  _ acting like Dad _ and Dean doesn’t even say anything in response. On top of everything else, he doesn’t need to feel like Sam needs to worry about him.

He switches to beer with some regrets. Sam doesn’t get concerned until Dean hits his fifth beer and slowly Dean stops expecting to feel hooks when he’s sober.

The angels provide him with plenty of beer in the room they stash him in but Dean doesn’t let himself drink it. He doesn’t deserve to numb this. 

Even if Sam’s a hypocrite for calling him an addict, Dean doesn’t want to prove him right.


	4. Season Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly Season Five went by in a blur of pessimism, borderline depression, alcoholism, and hopelessness for me, so this chapter may not be as detailed.   
Then again that’s kind of the show in a nutshell…  
Thanks for reading, and feedback makes my day :)

Dean discovers quickly that “you left me for a demon and kickstarted the apocalypse” is a pretty good response to any of Sam’s pointed comments about his drinking. 

Besides, the world’s got maybe a year left. There’s no point in acting like he’ll be around for much longer. He’ll die hunting a monster or he’ll die trying to kill the devil and who cares if his liver would have given out in a few years.

Dean recognizes the look in Sam’s eyes when he sees demon blood. And sure, there’s a multitude of other reasons Dean doesn’t trust his brother at the moment, but that’s the one that sticks with him long after Sam’s faded out of Baby’s rearview mirror.

Dean’s seen that look before. It was in John’s eyes when he looked at beer, it’s in Bobby’s sometimes when he looks at whiskey, it’s in the eyes of every addict begging for money he’s ever passed on the street. 

It’s in his own eyes when he wakes up and doesn’t have a hunt or something to fight.

Sam can’t be trusted anymore. Dean at least knows that he can trust himself to be predictable in his vices.

Cas is easy. Cas is fun. Cas can make Dean laugh like he hasn’t in years. Cas isn’t addicted to anything, he’s still got faith in something, and he makes Dean feel lighter than Sam has in a long time.

Dean doesn’t need Sam. He doesn’t need those miles and decades of old pain and buried resentment. He needs a hunt and a drink and maybe Cas’ company and that’s about it.

Zachariah seems to think otherwise.

When Dean winds up in the future and wakes up handcuffed in his older self’s cabin, the look in his mirror image’s eyes is what truly convinces him that this is real.

This is really Dean after the world goes to Hell. This is Dean when the booze is less of a temporary thing and more of a necessity. This is Dean without Sam, without anything to tie him down and hold him back

It’s terrifying. It’s almost worse than when he’d look into a mirror and see his eyes go black after Hell.

This future version of Cas is fucked up enough that Dean almost decides to say yes. Cas’ strange, alien innocence is gone, replaced by the sort of world-weary cynicism Dean associates with himself. 

He’s not an angel anymore. Cas is just another addict.

Dean mentally slaps himself for even thinking that.

Cas pulled Dean from Hell. Cas has saved Dean’s ass more times than Dean can count. Cas Fell for Dean. Cas is still following Dean’s instructions five years after the end of the world.

Dean can’t really judge the guy for picking up some shitty coping mechanisms. If Cas learned how to be human from Dean than he was screwed from the beginning.

Cas doesn’t seem to care if he dies. 

That’s another thing he probably learned from Dean.

With Sam back in the passenger seat Dean stops drinking as much. He’s got someone to hold him accountable now and a hunting partner and life is about as good as it can be given the circumstances.

Then Chuck texts and a lot of weirdness later they’ve got the Colt back.

“This is our last night on Earth,” Cas says, and he says it as a statement. Everyone’s smiles fade.

Dean’s really fucking glad he’s buzzed enough not to deck the angel. Last time his knuckles had stung for a solid hour.

Jo and Ellen die. Sam gets drunk with Dean and it’s a little less lonely than it usually is.

“So you’re saying you’re well adjusted,” Cas says.

“Hell no. I’m just well fed.”

Dean doesn’t know if that last part is even true. It feels like he’s operating on instinct and reflex, going through the motions so he can pretend everything is fine and so Sam doesn’t worry.

Famine tells Dean that he’s so dead inside he’s not even capable of wanting things. Dean wonders if the douchebag thinks that’s news.

The only thing he wants anymore is for Sam and Cas to be safe and for everything to just stop. But that’s not an option.

Sam’s screaming in the panic room and Dean’s vision keeps flashing between Hell and the last time this happened. Even the new bottle of Jack Bobby had handed him without comment can’t dull the sharp edges on the memory enough.

Dean leaves Cas to guard Sam and walks out of the house.

God doesn’t answer his prayers. Dean isn’t surprised, but he still has to swallow the bitter disappointment along with a swig of booze.

Lisa offers Dean a beer. He’s got work to do and stronger stuff in the backseat.

He’s halfway through a new bottle before he can work up the nerve to pray to Michael.

Cas comes instead and beats the shit out of him. Dean probably deserves that, considering everything he and his future self have done to the angel.

Dean and Bobby drink and Sam tries to puzzle things out and Dean’s so goddamn tired of having to feel.

Sam says yes in Detroit, because it was always going to be Detroit.

Sam jumps.

Dean goes to Lisa.

Dean tries to forget.


	5. Season Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I thought this was going to be a five plus one type of thing.   
I should just assume everything I start is going to be at least six times longer than I think it will.  
The Grammarly tone detector thing says this chapter sounds "disappointed" and "sad". It's not wrong...  
This chapter was written in an hour and not really edited so hopefully you like it. Season seven is definitely going to make for a better chapter.  
As always, thanks for reading, and I really appreciate feedback! :)

It takes a monumental effort not to start drinking the moment Dean wakes up. It gets even worse after the numbness of the first few days wears off. If it had just been Lisa, he probably would have gone to the nearest bar every night until he wound up dead behind the Impala’s wheel with a bullet through his head. 

But there’s Ben. There’s a kid. And Dean doesn’t want to be his dad. He has too many memories of John insisting that he didn’t have a problem, too many memories of nights spent watching John stumble over nothing and try to stay awake.

Yeah. Dean isn’t going to become John. He refuses to get drunk in front of Ben.

He still drinks more than he should. Lisa doesn’t ask him to stop, which is good, because if she had he would have packed up and left.

(It’s either drink or fight, is the thing. He might have promised Sam to stop drinking so much and broken that promise a thousand times, but he made one promise to Sam that he intends to keep. He’s got his family, he’s got his normal, apple pie life, and beating the shit out of people isn’t part of that picture.)

Dean tries to get Sam out. Of course he does. Saving Sammy’s ass is hardwired into his DNA. That promise he feels no regret in breaking.

Dean thought it would be easier as time went on. Instead, it gets harder. 

Every goddamn day he wakes up and looks for Sam. Every time he turns around he expects to see his brother’s stupidly shaggy head. Every time he hears an unexpected noise he goes to angle his back against Sam’s before he remembers.

Dean goes out for a few beers with the people he works with, drinks his way through half a fifth of whiskey before bed, and pretends this is what he wanted. 

Half the time he winds up in Lisa’s guest room because Alastair starts flickering in his peripheral and he knows it’ll be a bad night. Sometimes he has to get out of bed and check all the doors and windows three times before he can try to go back to sleep.

He prays to Cas on the worst nights. Cas never answers.

Dean doesn’t know if this is freedom, but it sure as hell ain’t peace.

Maybe he didn’t want either one. Maybe all he wanted was Sammy to be safe.

That’s all he’s ever wanted.

Instead he has Lisa, Ben, and a hole in his chest that he tries to fill with alcohol.

Sam comes back.

Sam’s back, but he doesn’t fit right with Dean anymore, and Lisa and Ben are in danger. Dean doesn’t drink any less. Sam doesn’t comment or seem to care.

That’s one of the first major signs something’s wrong.

He’d drowned himself in booze to take the edge of his memories of Sam. He keeps drinking to forget Lisa and Ben and everything he’d thought he wanted.

Dean doesn’t know what he wants anymore, and he’s starting to think peace might have been the better choice.

Sam doesn’t even try to calm Dean down on the airplane to Scotland. He does roll his eyes when Dean chats up one of the airline attendants to get a tumbler of whiskey right after takeoff. 

Sam doesn’t have his soul. 

Dean kills a twelve-year old girl.

Sam gets his soul back.

Bobby matches Dean beer for beer while they wait for Sam to wake up.

Ben and Lisa are kidnapped. Dean picks up a knife and his hand doesn’t want to shake for the first time since Hell.

He was Alastair’s chosen heir. He’ll show them why Hell still remembers his name.

Dean drinks steadily but his hands never grow less precise. He takes some things Sam would be horrified by to stay awake, but his knife stays accurate.

Alastair flayed the art of pain into Dean for thirty, forty years. The substances aren’t going to throw him off.

In a faint way, Dean appreciates the fact that Sam’s concerned about him again. It’s reassuring.

Through the year Sam was in the cage, Cas had been one of the only things Dean could depend on. Not his presence, because Cas never answered Dean’s prayers, but the thought that Cas at least was safe and happy and that Dean hadn’t ruined him had helped keep him going.

Cas is Dean’s enemy now.

Cas hurts Sam.

Cas thinks he’s God.

Dean and Bobby match each other glass for glass.


End file.
